'Stealth Omicron' Subvariant Tested For In PA: What To Know

PENNSYLVANIA — Health officials in Pennsylvania and around the region are monitoring the rise of a new subvariant of omicron, but it's unclear yet if it's of more concern than its highly transmissible parent.

The subvariant of omicron is known as BA.2, also dubbed "stealth omicron" because its particular genetic traits make it somewhat harder to detect, and evidence suggested it will spread even more quickly than its infamous parent. So far, cases of BA.2 have been found in almost half of the U.S. states.

In Pennsylvania, officials said they are looking for the variant. A case has not yet been confirmed in the state.

“The latest results of sequencing from Pennsylvania have not revealed the presence of the BA.2 variant,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health told Patch.

Overall, cases of omicron are decreasing in Pennsylvania, but officials say it's too early to let up.

“Despite the slight decrease in cases, staffing resources are in high-demand from Pennsylvania hospitals and health systems, whose frontline healthcare workers are exhausted and in need of support while they continue to see record numbers," Acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter said in a statement.

This new subvariant is not considered a variant of concern, according to the World Health Organization. In countries such as Denmark, where it quickly became the dominant variant, health officials have not seen an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths.

Omicron and delta are the two variants circulating the most in Pennsylvania at the moment, according to the state's COVID dashboard, which breaks it down by variants.

The subvariant has been detected in Denmark, Britain and India, among other countries. BA.2 is widespread in Denmark and is now the dominant strain in the country of 6 million people, The Washington Post reported, but said that may be explained by the country's robust program to sequence coronavirus genomes.

BA.2 accounts for 65 percent of new cases as the parent variant declines, Anders Fomsgaard, a virologist at Denmark's State Serum Institute, told The Post in an email.

With reporting from Patch correspondents Beth Dalbey and Carly Baldwin